Chapter 37: Cormac

Cormac knew where he was going even with only the moon to guide him. Those rock formations in the distance had always been a place of communion, where packs would meet to discuss truces or tear each other to pieces. There was much less of that in his day; most packs were already too frightened of being exposed to fight amongst themselves. No need for any extra enemies when they had humans surrounding them.

When he got closer, he saw the space tucked into the rock formations where he had been a million times before. Now, there was a truck parked there with its headlights on, illuminating the place like some depressing carnivale. A man stood against the driver’s side door, his face fiery red from the ember on the end of his cigarette.

Cormac screeched to a halt about twenty feet away from the truck where the beam of the headlights tapered out. His paws rested in the faintest circle of it, and he paced, trying to get a good look at who the man was.

“For god sake, Cormac, face me as a human.”

He didn’t want to change back. Cormac felt safer as a wolf.

“Com’on, it’s no big deal.”

The man stepped into the light, and Cormac squinted but didn’t recognize him. He let himself shift back reluctantly, standing naked in front of this stranger.

“You talk like you know me,” Cormac said.

“We’ve met before. You mated with someone in my pack.” He ground his cigarette out with his foot. “You let some demented human shoot her.”

“You’re from Maxine’s pack?”

The man nodded, coming closer. Cormac saw that he was hardly a man. Maybe twenty at the oldest. He tapped a finger to his chest. “My name’s Damon. I can’t imagine ya heard that name before.”

“I don’t think so.”

Damon cocked his head to the side. “What about a man named Wes? From Denver?”

Cormac cleared his throat. “Yeah. Might have heard of him.”

“Ya heard he’s on his way here? Very excited to meet you.”

Cormac reached forward and pulled Damon to him by the front of his shirt. Damon’s cool facade flopped off his face the moment Cormac clutched at him.

“Why does he know Maxine?” Cormac asked as he shook Damon roughly. “Was he ever part of your pack?”

“He was part of her family,” Damon blurted out.

Cormac dropped his hold on him. “What?”

“Wes is Maxine’s cousin. He talked us into this to get back at you.”

Cormac grabbed the kid again but this time said nothing. It didn’t make sense to him. There was no reason to get back at him; even if this pack thought he was to blame for Maxine’s death, they couldn’t possibly think he wanted it to happen. That he was happy about it. He started dragging Damon towards the truck.

“You’re coming with me, kid,” Cormac said, lowly. “We’ve got some questions that need to be cleared up.”

Damon started to struggle so violently that Cormac was unsure if he was going to be able to hold him still. He went to throw him on the ground, maybe hunch over him and snarl for good measure, but they were too close to the truck. Damon’s head connected with the bumper, and he went rag doll.

Cormac sighed, crouching down to pick him up. “This isn’t what I needed tonight,” Cormac said, thinking about how so recently he had been entangled with Isabelle. “I was having an alright time tonight.”

Damon was a substantial weight but Cormac managed to wrangle him into the cab of the truck. He climbed in the other side, slamming the door as he glanced down at his nakedness. His cock lay flat for a moment then an image surged through his mind of Isabelle’s back arching and hunching; on her knees in the dirt, more of an animal in that moment than he had ever been in his life. The pulse that surrounded his groin on either side grew impossible to ignore.

“God damn it, kid,” he muttered, starting up the engine and throwing the truck into gear. “I really don’t need to be drivin’ around with a rod on.”

The headlights bounded over the uneven ground as Cormac drove it slowly across the expanse of land to the ranch. He hoped Isabelle had thought it best to try and get some sleep but as he pulled in, he could see a tall, slim shape moving through the kitchen towards the front door. She was smart enough not to open it without setting eyes on him. Still, thinking about her waiting behind a thin piece of wood and a ratty screen while anyone, let alone shifters, were hunting her turned his stomach to lead. He turned off the lights and dragged Damon out into the brisk night air.

“That’s you, right?” Isabelle asked, opening the front door a crack.

“It’s me,” Cormac grunted as he lugged Damon’s body up the drive. “And someone else too.”

Isabelle swung the door the rest of the way open, and Cormac dragged Damon inside. He was starting to come around, flinching and emitting all sorts of strange noises. Cormac hauled him onto the couch, flipped him on his stomach, and pinned him down with his knee.

“Isabelle, there’s a length of rope in the hall closet. Grab it for me.”

She was off like a shot, coming back seconds later with the rope clutched in her hands. Cormac bound Damon’s wrists together as Damon blinked his way into reality.

“Shit.” Damon wriggled under Cormac’s weight, putting up a fight that none of them in the room thought he had a chance of winning. “What’re ya gonna do to me?”

“Just talk to ya,” Cormac told him but Damon clearly didn’t believe that. He thrashed about until Cormac put his other knee against his spine and bound his ankles as well.

“I don’t know a thing,” Damon swore. “It’d be a waste of your time to torture me or somethin’ like that.”

“Not if we were just doing it for fun,” Isabelle said in a tone so cold it startled even Cormac. He glanced at her, hoping there’d be a ghost of a smile on her face but her eyes as icy as her voice.

Isabelle was scared too, and unlike him, she was out of her world completely. He hadn’t seen her have such a harsh reaction before; the intended fear was obvious on Damon’s face.

Cormac finished tying him up and got to his feet. “We’re not gonna torture you,” he promised, not looking at Isabelle when he said it. “Even if I thought ya knew everything, I wouldn’t.”

Isabelle pressed the back of her hand against her nose again. “Shit, that smell. He’s where it was coming from?”

“Different packs smell different,” Cormac told her.

“I don’t really notice a smell with you though.”

If it had been another moment, Cormac would have pulled her down to all fours again, whispering as he fucked her that she didn’t notice how he smelled because she was his mate and he was hers. They might not have known it when they first crossed paths but now it was impossible to deny.

There wasn’t time for him to explain the intricacies of the shifter world, romantically or not. Cormac leaned over Damon, bringing his face as close as he could without actually touching him. “Talk to us about Wes.”

He heard Isabelle inhale sharply. Damon did too, and moved his eyes to look towards her but couldn’t. His body went limp as if all the fight had been sapped out of him. Cormac felt him shake, and was surprised to see the kid crying.

“Wes’ll kill me,” he said, muffling himself into the cushions of the couch. “If he finds out I told you anything, he’ll rip me apart.”

“What do you think we’ll do?” Isabelle hissed.

Cormac rested his palm against Damon’s back. “Tell us what’s going on. I swear on Maxine’s grave that I’ll protect you.”

The watery confession slipped out between whimpers. Cormac felt sorry for Damon, someone who was in over his head and had taken on a challenge of coming to Cormac alone, believing that they were evenly matched. It wasn’t long before the kid broke, and told them everything he knew.

“Wes thinks it’s time to stop living in the shadows,” he explained. “He wants to expose shifters to the world, get rich off the story.”

“And what does he think is gonna happen when everyone knows we exist?”

“He says only folks like us livin’ in the boonies are in danger. He told the rest of the pack that he’s gonna move us to a city the moment the story breaks.” Damon pushed his face into the cushion again, a low wail that came out like a howl breaking from him. “He’s gonna keep us safe, and he don’t care what happens to the rest of ya.”

“Why the hell would you guys go along with this?” Isabelle asked.

Damon shrugged as well as he could in his bound position. “We got nothin’ left. The whole pack is broke. We’re barely scrapin’ by.”

Cormac sighed and stood upright, hands on hips and his head dangling into his chest. “What does Gus know about this?”

“Gus was told that if he kept real quiet ‘bout everything that he’d be safe. Wes wouldn’t breath a word of him to anyone.” Damon tried to look at Cormac the same way he had tried to look at Isabelle. “Wes said the only shifters that are gonna get hurt is your pack.”

Cormac dropped his head lower into his chest. His lungs felt deflated; there was a vacuum in his stomach steadily filling with the sharp point of anxiety. This was a vengeance move, no doubt about it. Wes was on a warpath for whatever reason, and he had set Cormac and the rest of his family in his crosshairs.

“So what do you think?” Isabelle asked him when they stepped into the kitchen to have a caucus in hushed, hurried tones.

“Ya mean do I think he’s lying or do I think that’s really your boss’s plan?”

“What do you think about any of it?” She crossed her arms over her chest, staring in the direction of the bound up kid on the couch. “It still doesn’t make sense to me. Why would Wes risk what could happen if you guys were exposed? Does he really think he can keep himself or anyone in his pack safe?”

“He might not even expose himself though. He might just run with a story and not tell the world that he’s a shifter too.”

Isabelle nodded. “Yeah, that’s what I was thinking. He could make bank off this without putting anyone he cared about in danger.”

“Get me killed in the process.”

Cormac turned his attention to the small houses on the ranch where Clint and Joey and everyone else he cared about, aside from Tara and now Isabelle, slept. His hope was that he wouldn’t have to pull them into this but like Isabelle, they were enmeshed whether he wanted it or not. Joey would take the news poorly; he’d be ready to fight before the sentence got out of Cormac’s mouth. It didn’t take much to convince Joey that there was no other option besides violence.

The sound of Isabelle’s voice reached him from a distance. He had withdrawn so deeply into himself that he could hardly pay attention to her. When his eyes cleared and he matched her gaze, he saw her quizzical expression.

“Is that the plan?” she asked in a tone that made Cormac think she was repeating herself.

“I don’t have a plan yet,” he told her. “But there’s one thing I gotta do right now.” He motioned toward Damon. “Keep an eye on him. I’ll be right back.”

Outside in the blue black, Cormac noticed the sting of anxiety in his stomach lessened. Just being in nature and away from the squirming, sniffling form of Damon cleared his head. There was no plan yet to speak of but at least he didn’t feel like he was going to be sick; at least he didn’t feel like he had failed himself and everyone he cared about in the worst way possible.

He got to Joey’s cabin and pounded on the door. From inside, he heard Joey grumble. If he could have, he would have told him to savor the moment he was in right now, the one right before he knew what an insane amount of danger they were all in; before he knew that there were people in the world terrible enough to sell out their own kind for a buck. For a story.

“Who is it?” Joey shouted, hoarse and sleep logged.

“It’s me, Joey. Open up. I got somethin’ important to talk to you ‘bout.”

Joey swung the door back and leaned against the side of it. He was wearing only underwear, and he shivered in the presence of the night wind. “Damn, I forgot what it gets like out here.”

“We got bigger issues than the wind, cuz.” Cormac jerked his head towards the main house. “Come inside.”

Joey was oddly silent on the walk. Before they got to the main house, he put a hand on Cormac’s shoulder and turned his cousin towards him. “What’d she do?”

“Huh? Who?”

“Oh, please. Who do ya think?” He jerked his head towards Isabelle’s bedroom window. “Your main squeeze, that human. She got us into somethin’, didn’t she?”

Cormac crossed his arms over his chest. “What makes you say that?”

He was used to Joey hating someone for no reason, especially a human, but he was surprised he had so much antagonism towards someone Cormac cared about. Joey might not have liked the idea of a human woman lurking around them but once he saw that Cormac trusted her, that should be that. Yet, here he was, bristling against the wind chill and locking eyes so directly that even in the darkness, Cormac could see the very lines of Joey’s pupil.

“Just tell me what she did, cuz,” Joey repeated. “I already know she’s the reason behind whatever’s wrong.”

“It wasn’t her,” Cormac replied but Joey snorted. Cormac jammed a threatening finger into Joey’s face. “It wasn’t her. We’ve been set up, Joey. We all have.”

“By who?”

Cormac started towards the house again, talking to Joey as he walked. “Come inside,” he told him when he got to the door. “We’ve got to get ready for tomorrow.”